Friday, November 20, 2009

Tough read

Needs editing: I found this lead in a NY Post story --
In 2004, seven-times-mar ried Las Vegas stripper- turned-happy-housewife Marjorie Orbin's husband went missing.

His family and friends were frantic. Marjorie wasn't.
I love the second paragraph, but the first graph is tough to read. They want to get the seven-times-married and the Las Vegas stripper-turned-happy housewife all in one sentence -- hey, it's titillating -- but it's hard to read. The thing is, the sentence isn't even about the suddenly happy former stripper; it's about her husband going missing.

They didn't even bother to make married one word; it's two.

Without the multiple marriages and the stripper in there, it's a pretty pedestrian lede, although, overall, it's a pretty good story. I love the part about the guy looking for gold and finding death. Well done.

But I'm not even sure how to fix the lede, at least the way the NY Post staff would like. I'll ruminate.

Today's quote: "Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil; our great hope lies in developing what is good." - Calvin Coolidge

I wonder where that leaves Batman.


Contact: I can be reached at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.

Entries from The Dog Blog
Blog entries from The Auto Racing Journal
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

No comments:

Post a Comment